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Sinful society denounced in Good Friday meditations
**Sinful society denounced in Good Friday meditations **
Rome, Apr. 05 (CWNews.com) - Archbishop Angelo Comastri forcefully denounces the vices of a secularized modern society in the meditations that will be read during this year’s Stations of the Cross on Good Friday at the Roman Coliseum.
“Lord, we have lost the sense of sin!” the Italian prelate remarks in his text, which was obtained by the I Media news agency in Rome. His meditations go on to condemn “an insidious propaganda” that leads toward “an idiotic apology for evil, an absurd cult of Satan, a mad desire for transgression, a false liberty, without conscience, that exalts caprice, vice, and selfishness.”
Archbishop Comastri, the vicar general of Vatican City, was asked by Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) to prepare the meditations for this year’s Good Friday observance. He has responded with a powerful text calling upon Christians to reject the “monotone publicity” of a hedonist society that bids people “to die in selfishness.”
The archbishop’s meditations argue that “aggression against the family is certainly a sorrowful Passion for God.” Contemporary attitudes, he write, seem motivated by an “anti-Genesis” attitude-- a “diabolical project” to undermine God’s plan for the family. He also decries the sharp division between a world of affluence and indulgence, and a world of severe need, famine, and sickness.
Archbishop Comastri explains that his Good Friday meditations are organized around two certainties: the “devastating power of sin,” and the healing power of God’s love. Contemplating the crucified Christ, he reflects that the Passion is “the history of all humanity.”
The powerful meditations by Archbishop Comastri follow a year after Pope Benedict himself-- then Cardinal Ratzinger-- delivered another set of provocative reflections on the Passion. Asked by Pope John Paul II (bio - news) to prepare the Good Friday meditations last year, Cardinal Ratzinger responded with a dark and somber series of thoughts. The future Pontiff likened the Church to “a boat about to sink: a boat taking on water on every side.” He condemned not only the “godless secularism” of the contemporary world, but also the “filth” within the Catholic Church, and said that “a Christianity which has grown weary of faith has abandoned the Lord.” Pope Benedict will lead the Stations of the Cross this year on Good Friday, April 14. The evening observance is a Roman tradition that dates back at least to 1750; it was revived by Pope Paul VI in 1964.
**Sinful society denounced in Good Friday meditations **
Rome, Apr. 05 (CWNews.com) - Archbishop Angelo Comastri forcefully denounces the vices of a secularized modern society in the meditations that will be read during this year’s Stations of the Cross on Good Friday at the Roman Coliseum.
“Lord, we have lost the sense of sin!” the Italian prelate remarks in his text, which was obtained by the I Media news agency in Rome. His meditations go on to condemn “an insidious propaganda” that leads toward “an idiotic apology for evil, an absurd cult of Satan, a mad desire for transgression, a false liberty, without conscience, that exalts caprice, vice, and selfishness.”
Archbishop Comastri, the vicar general of Vatican City, was asked by Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) to prepare the meditations for this year’s Good Friday observance. He has responded with a powerful text calling upon Christians to reject the “monotone publicity” of a hedonist society that bids people “to die in selfishness.”
The archbishop’s meditations argue that “aggression against the family is certainly a sorrowful Passion for God.” Contemporary attitudes, he write, seem motivated by an “anti-Genesis” attitude-- a “diabolical project” to undermine God’s plan for the family. He also decries the sharp division between a world of affluence and indulgence, and a world of severe need, famine, and sickness.
Archbishop Comastri explains that his Good Friday meditations are organized around two certainties: the “devastating power of sin,” and the healing power of God’s love. Contemplating the crucified Christ, he reflects that the Passion is “the history of all humanity.”
The powerful meditations by Archbishop Comastri follow a year after Pope Benedict himself-- then Cardinal Ratzinger-- delivered another set of provocative reflections on the Passion. Asked by Pope John Paul II (bio - news) to prepare the Good Friday meditations last year, Cardinal Ratzinger responded with a dark and somber series of thoughts. The future Pontiff likened the Church to “a boat about to sink: a boat taking on water on every side.” He condemned not only the “godless secularism” of the contemporary world, but also the “filth” within the Catholic Church, and said that “a Christianity which has grown weary of faith has abandoned the Lord.” Pope Benedict will lead the Stations of the Cross this year on Good Friday, April 14. The evening observance is a Roman tradition that dates back at least to 1750; it was revived by Pope Paul VI in 1964.
